The present invention relates to the cable transportation system known as the chair-lift and results in a new concept thanks to a device protecting passengers from adverse weather conditions often prevailing in mountain areas.
Amongst the various types of cable lifts used in winter sport resorts the chair-lift is most interesting as it brings an excellent capacity to investment ratio together with a low cost and reliable operation. However it provides no protection against cold and other adverse weather conditions which often cause very unpleasant rides sometimes lasting more than 15 minutes.
To date none of the proposed solutions has proved acceptable to the trade for practical reasons such as protection restricted to legs only, handling or material problems, line endangered by wind action on the protecting body of the empty chairs or otherwise (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,275,921, and 4,303,016). Gondola lifts offer a good protection but at a very high cost due to the important body required for sitting up to ten passengers and the large sized lower and upper stations needed to store all gondolas when operation is shut out so that the action of the wind on these light and voluminous structures could not endanger the line.
The recently developed detachable chair lift now offers the same high output but without the costly and cumbersome stations, as empty chairs offering a reduced area to wind action can be left permanently on the line ; however these lifts operate at a speed of up to 5 meters per second which increases the inconvenience of the open chair; obviously an adequate protecting device would then eliminate the only significant, but high priced, advantage offered by the gondola lift over the detachable chair lift.